All Questions
Tagged with ho.history-overview lambda-calculus
7 questions
11
votes
2
answers
405
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What are pertinent references to cite on Scott domains?
Scott domains are often presented as having been introduced in 1969. However, the first (but numerous!) papers are from the 1970s, so it is not easy to know what the pertinent references are. My two ...
- 509
14
votes
0
answers
259
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historical question: earliest description of beta-normal terms together with "neutral" terms in lambda calculus?
A bit of "folklore" in lambda calculus is the idea of characterizing the class of $\beta$-normal terms inductively as a syntactic category ($R$) defined in mutual induction with an auxiliary syntactic ...
- 4,831
4
votes
3
answers
693
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Why is lambda calculus so "function" oriented?
I've always had this question nagging at me subconsciously but have never been able to intuitively grasp it. Why does $\lambda$-calculus have a functional notation? Why is everything a function?
It ...
- 5,385
23
votes
2
answers
2k
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What was the original intent for the creation of Lambda calculus?
I've read that initially Church proposed the $\lambda$-calculus as part of his Postulates of Logic paper (which is a dense read). But Kleene proved his "system" inconsistent after which, Church ...
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13
votes
2
answers
1k
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How exactly does lambda calculus capture the intuitive notion of computability?
I've been trying to wrap my head around the what, why and how of $\lambda$-calculus but I'm unable to come to grips with "why does it work"?
"Intuitively" I get the computability model of Turing ...
- 5,385
95
votes
7
answers
31k
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What is the contribution of lambda calculus to the field of theory of computation?
I'm just reading up on lambda calculus to "get to know it". I see it as an alternate form of computation as opposed to the Turing Machine. It's an interesting way of doing things with functions/...
- 5,385
9
votes
1
answer
288
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Origin of Church encodings
In which paper did Alonzo Church first describe Church encoding? I can't find any articles that actually cite the paper, but I am interested in reading it.
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